The shadow of Turkish civil war falls over Germany on a bloody Saturday

Graphic by the activist "Thoreau Redcrow", who compares the situation in Turkey with Nazi-Germany

Turkey is on the edge of a civil war.
All over the country violent lynch mobs supported by the police, chanting slogans like "We need to transform these areas into Armenian and Kurdish cemeteries", "We don't want arrests, we want massacres" and asking the government to resolve the "Kurdish problem" in a "traditional Turkish way", filled the streets, burned Kurdish shops and restaurants and beat up pedestrians for talking Kurdish on the phone.
The mobs consisted of members of the right-wing radical Grey Wolves as well as of the pro-government militia Ottoman Squads (Osmanlı Ocakları).
Under the pretext of fighting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Turkey besieged the city of Cizre and killed at least 20 civilians, among them also six children. Although the eight day lasting siege ended on Saturday, 12 September 2015, it must be called a shame that the international community did not act. With the exception of the German Green Party and the European Council, almost no important politician commented on what is going on.
The situation was similar to Kosovo in 1999 and a massacre was in the air.
Even worse that the German minister of foreign affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, advocating for a two-state solution in the Middle East conflict and once a close confidante of the former chancellor Schroeder, who played a pioneering role in the recognition of Kosovo's independence, did not even retract his statement dating from the middle of August 2015, when he expressed his support for Turkey's military strikes against Kurdes and spoke out against Kurdish self-determination (Source: RUDAW: German FM: independent Kurdistan would destabilize region ).
There were already signs of Steinmeiers' double moral standard in April 2015, when he tried to play off the Jewish and Armenian community against each other, in order to avoid the parliament from recognizing the Armenian genocide, although Dr. Josef Schuster, chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany publicly took side for the recognition.


Turkish civil war reached Germany and Switzerland on weekend

Almost unnoticed, Saturday, 12 September is a memorable day in German history. Never before, a conflict between immigrant groups did reach such a violent level.
In several cities such as Mannheim, Berlin, Hannover and the capital of Switzerland, there have been attacks by Turkish nationalists against Kurdish institutions and demonstrators.
A Kurd was stabbed in the neck in Hannover by Turkish fascists. He was in critical condition, while a fascist was arrested by the police. Fortunately his condition stabilized. The linked picture shows the victim in hospital: https://www.facebook.com/ForumfuerAleviten/photos/a.1499155890372100.1073741830.1497042970583392/1700833653537655/?type=1&theater
(Video: https://www.facebook.com/TobiasHuchSeite/videos/10153550308206142/?pnref=story)

In Bern (Switzerland) another Turkish right-wing radical carried out an attack on a group of Kurds with his car, injuring several people. His car was found. (Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo_5HYZUEIM&feature=share)

In Berlin about 60 Turkish right-wing radicals carrying party flags of the MHP and AKP, gathered at the underground station "Kottbuser Tor" to hunt people, that they consider to be unpleasant. Soon they received support and reinforcing by several like-minded participants of an anti-PKK demonstration taking place at the "Hermannsplatz". The overburdened police could not stop them starting a manhunt on Kurds in the heart of Kreuzberg, a quarter that was once a left-wing stronghold, but today is rather a Mecca for the partying scene. (Source: Lower Class Magazine: „Sie wollen Kurden töten“)



Bad conscience or just ingnorant indifference: German politicians remain silent

Given the violent incidents, one can hardly understand the German politicians not even breathing a word about it. The reasons behind this can only be guessed, but it seems in all probability that their silence is related to a 30 years continuing history of cooperation between German policy and imported and supported Turkish extremism.

When the first Turkish guest worker came to Germany in the 1970s, many of them were Kurds or belonged to Turkish leftist movements. Fearing that they could join German leftist or even communist movements, a fatal decision was drawn in 1978. Franz-Josef Strauss, an influencial Bavarian right-wing politician and former German minister of defence, met Alparslan Türkeş, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler, and founder of the Turkish nationalist party MHP and coordinator of their paramilitary organisation, the Grey Wolves. Strauss and Türkeş agreed upon founding and building up wide-scale organizational structures for the Grey Wolves all over Germany in order to neutralize and fight communist movements.
Strauss promised Türkeş to guarantee a save haven for his organization and its' members in Germany. With help and support of the German secret service (BND), represented by Dr Kannapin, they were made able to establish their network and spread their racist ideas against first and foremost Kurds, Jews, Armenians but also many other non-Turkic people.
(Historian Nikolaus Brauns quotes on how the Grey Wolves came to Germany)
At the end of April 2015, they held a demonstration of power with more than 10.000 participants in the city of Oberhausen. During the event, discriminating speeches about Turkey's ethnic and religious minorites were held. Despite protests of especially the Kurdish and Armenian community local politicians did not even comment on the event, e.g. the major preferred to take action against 16 members of the anti-islam movement "Pro-NRW" protesting at the same time in Oberhausen.
But it is not "only" the Grey Wolves spreading discriminating attitudes against especially Kurds, Jews and Armenians in Germany. There are furthermore organisations like Millî Görüş or the DITIB, which directly from the Turkish Ministry for Islamic Affairs depends financially, ideologically and even in personnel matters.
Although they are criticized for anti-Armenian activities, such as in June 2014 when they organised a freebie bustour for theirs members to the Dutch city of Almelo to demonstrate against an Armenian genocide memorial (Julian Tumasewitsch: Kaffeefahrt zur Störung der Totenruhe........Mit UETD- und Diyanet Tours unterwegs in den Niederlanden), anti-Jewish activities, like conspicuously not supporting political initiatives against antisemitism support by Jewish, Christian and Alevi organisations, e.g. at the end of June in Stuttgart (Ralf Balke für die Jüdische Allgemeine: Tatort Schulhof-Lehrer sehen bei Judenhass häufig weg, jüdische Schüler werden alleingelassen), and their efforts to assimilate members of the Alevi community to Sunni Islam.
Being aware about this kind of conveying racial and ethnic tensions, Austria forbid foreign sponsorship to Islamic organisations in spring 2015, while German politicians keep on presenting these Ankara depending federations as partners in matters of integration and fighting religious extremism.
In the middle of August 2015, Germany's social democratic Minister for Family Affairs, Manuela Schwesig, media effectively presented a project against the radicalization of young Muslims. The partner she chose is the DITIB controlled Şehitlik (Turkish word for martyr) mosque in Berlin. However, Schwesig did not give a satisfactory answer, how a mosque community that houses and worships the graves of Cemal Azmi and Baheddin Cakir (Marcel Leubecher für Die Welt: Ehrengräber für Völkermörder an Berliner Moschee), two main architects of the genocide against the non-Muslim minorities of the Ottoman Empire (Armenians, Syriacs, Pontic Greeks and Kurds of Yazidi believe), can seriously help to prevent Islamic extremism.
Furthermore, in November 2014, the Berlin Şehitlik mosque community rejected an invitation by the homosexual initiative "meet2respect" againstt homophobia(Micha Schulze auf queer.de: Şehitlik-Moschee sagt Treffen mit Lesben und Schwulen ab).


German politcians seem to remain completely indifferent about the mentionned unions and federations manifestly fuelling ethnic tensions and homophobia.
On Saturday, 12 September 2015, their bad ideological influence reached a further level of escalation and peaceful Kurdish demonstrators and antifascists paid the price.






* Alevis are a religious community in Turkey with about 15 million believers, consisting of a ethnically Kurdish majority, but a large number of Turkish Alevis as well. In the past, they were largely persecuted and in todays' Turkey, they are still not legally equal to Sunni Muslims. In Germany, they are about 500.000. About the half of them consider their religion to be part of Shia Islam, the other half interprets Alevism as an independent zoroastrianism-like religion.

Open letter: Please save the Kurds of Kobanê by getting in contact with the UK and Cyprus!

to the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the President of Cyprus and the US Secretary of State

Dear Mr Rt Hon Philip Hammond,
Dear Mr Nikos Anastasiadis,
Dear Mr John Kerry,


according to the Washington post, U.N. Special Envoy for Syria, Mr Staffan de Mistura, found the right words and drew the exact comparisons WP: "U.N envoy invokes Srebrenica massacre in call for help for Syrian town of Kobanel"


It is obvious that Turkey is neither willing to help the Kurds nor to avoid that Srebrenica and Rwanda will repeat, although it would have nothing to do than just simply open the US Air base in Incirlik and stop cutting the Kurdish reinforcements as well as humanitarian help BBC video: Turkey stops Kurds from entering Syria to fight Islamic State).
If Turkey does not want to cooperate without insisting on it’s maximalist demands for a dangerous “buffer zone” (Rebwar Rashed: "NO to Turkey´s ‘Buffer Zone’ in West Kurdistan!"), we have to let negociations go and look for a reasonable alternative, which is more than obvious.

As Mr de Mistura said, there can be no doubt about the international communities' responsibilty to help. If it keeps on waiting for the Turkish government, that is insisting only on it’s own national interests, not caring about massacres and cruelties carried out by ISIS and seeking only to destroy Kurdish democratic movement in Northern Syria, please kindly realize that this is unavoidable. If these senseless negociations continue, each current government on earth will be guilty and blamed by future generations.

The international community must contact Cyprus immediately and think about the use of the British Royal Air Force Station Akrotiri (Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia) in order to support the Kurdish defenders with Apache helicopters, that already served to avoid massacres in Kosovo in 1999.
The Apache's average operating range is about 296 miles.
The distance from RAF Akrotiri to Kobanê is less than 330 miles. So, please find a way to make this life-saving alternative become real; e.g. try to equip the infantry base in Dhekelia with petrol and weapons to arm the helicopters and you can save another 45 miles. This may not work with jets, but seems to me like a realistic way to act with helicopters.

I am appealing to your humanity, please react immediately and save the lives of thousands of Kurds, Syriacs, Armenians and other ethnicities living peacefully together in the town of Kobanê defending the democratic values they obtained within the last two years.

When the Armenians fled from Marash to Uruguay (Translation of Ferda Cetin's publication “Maraş'tan Uruguay'a Kaçabilen Ermeniler ")

The text below is a translation.
The article was originally written and published by Ferda Çetin in Turkish language and can be read under the following link:
"Maraş'tan Uruguay'a Kaçabilen Ermeniler" by Ferda Çetin

Uruguay is located at the other end of the world. The current state of technology allows it to get to the country within just one single day by plane. A hundred years ago there was no alternative to overcome the unbridgeable distance, but to go on a long voyage by ship that took five to six months. A few years ago the journalist Ali M. Doğan visited Uruguay while reporting from Latin America. When he heard about a large number of Armenians living there, he explored their background, found the history of a hundred- year-long exile and decided to make a documentary about it.

The majority of today's 70 to 80 year olds generation of Armenians from Marash knows each detail in the lives of their fathers and mothers. Each of them tells about genocide, the start of their youth in a refugee family and personal tragedies.
The emigrants succeeded in rebuilding a new life in Uruguay. Nevertheless, they did not forget anything. No matter what has been necessary to keep their memories alive, they did it. There is a very active club. On certain days three generations meet there.
The club bears the name "Maraşlılar Derneği " ("Club of those who are from Marash"). When an old Armenian asked M.Ali Doğan, where he comes from, he answered "I am from Marash" and cheers broke out. "Maraşlı olsun çamırdan olsun" ("Those who come from Marash must be made of clay").
Once the people were forced to escape from their homes and it would have been logical to seek sanctuary in a neighboring country. But the massacres and the violence the Armenians had to face were so cruel, that they fled as far away as they could to the most inaccessible places on earth that could be imagined in the historical context. Therefore, they preferred to emigrate to Uruguay, Argentina or the United States. They did everything they could in order to move away from oppression, barbarism and ruthless cruelty.
Despite dozens of government changes after the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish state, including the AKP, does not recognize it. Quite the contrary, they try to tell a story about accidental victims of necessary resettlement marches and Armenians who murdered Turks. Furthermore, they intend to make the world believe, the number of massacred Armenians would not amount to 1.5 million, but it is plausible to quantify the number of victims to 350.000, as if that was an excusable number of taken lives. Official Turkish State Historians wrote hundreds of books to make the people believe these lies. However, more and more Armenian authors published their memories in the last years in rapid succession. What they tell emphasizes the absurdity of this discussion about the number of victims and shows us the truth plainly.

Vahan Totovents, born in 1889 in Mezre (province of Elazig) describes his tragic story in "Yitik Evin Varisleri " ("The heirs of the lost house ") as it follows:
"When we were kids waiting for Santa to bring us our gifts on a New Year's Eve, the death knocked on our door and I held my father's hand .
They shook our hands politely. Arm in arm we walked out of the house. During the march through the crisp white snow, we lost sight of each other. Those who were gone now, never returned...
The loss of Rebeka, one of his cousins Vahan Totovents loved the most, he describes as follows:
Rebeka , the daughter of my aunt was a strong, healthy and hard-working girl with the spirit of a poet. Her large, pure blue eyes seemed to be able even to stop the sky from falling down. But, this sky collapsed right over the previously sprouting and growing white lilies Rebeka had planted. Rebeka was deported to the Arabian deserts. The sun had burned birthmarks in her forehead and cheeks. Knowing that you had to suffer all this breaks my heart. Rebeka, I wish I could take the abominations which you have experienced from you and bear them myself. I salute you and beg you to see the tears of your brother…"

Hagop Mintzuri from the village of Armi in the province of Erzincan, describes the events from 1897 to 1940 in "İstanbul Anıları" (Memories from Istanbul) as follows:
“In April 1915, the deportation and expulsion of the Armenians in Istanbul began, when I was there as a soldier. In May, no more letters arrived from my ancestral village. I sent a reply telegram twice, but did not receive any answer. To the third one I got the following answer: "They are not here but elsewhere on an unknown route". My grandfather Melkon was 88 years old. My mother Nanik was 55 years old , my children Nurhan, Maranik, Arahit and Haco were 6, 4, 2 years and 9 months old. My wife Voğıda was 29 years old. How should they survive a march? My grandfather would not have even made it to the fountain of Suazeg. One day Temer, a Kurd from Gamıh had come to visit me. He was a farmer at Lusnik's land, the aunt of my cousin. As far as I can remember, he has tilled the fields around her house. He spoke Armenian as well as we did. He brought me the news that all Armenians were deported from the village on 4 June. He told me that they kissed the doors of their houses and the door of the church, before they had to leave the village. If a beloved one died in your house, wouldn’t you wish to die together? Could you still work, doing your business as usual? Could you continue day in and day out and go to work, as if nothing had happened? I was a soldier and I had to obey military orders. How would I have to resign myself and let them go?"

With the memoirs of Hagop Mintzuri, we want to tell, how he survived as the only member of his family.
The Armenians in Uruguay whose ancestors once fled from Marash miss the earth and the people in their native country. With words like "Maraşlı olsun çamırdan olsun" they express, how they yearn for it. Vahan Totovents from Harput summarizes the love and longing for his birthplace in the following words: "In this ancient land the sun summons the fruits to grow, it breathes breath into an inexhaustible vegetation covering the soil; rivers are lapping gently, it dawns evenly until the sun sets in the arms of the evening lights, a silver bowl full to the brim with fresh milk swims on blue water, the nights are animated by spirits with the voice of the stars, the trees float towards the horizon and all the flowers vibrate whispering" (Vahan Totoventes studied in the U.S. before he moved to the Soviet Republic of Armenia. He was imprisoned by Stalin's regime from 1936 to 1937. Afterwards none ever heard from him again).

All we did to the Armenians was cruelty and genocide. This has caused incredibly deep wounds to the survivors. The people here in this country (Uruguay), we have punished with never ending loneliness. That's what we did to those who were our good neighbors, and they have left us neighborless. Our distrust and their inner turmoil avoid us from being redeemed out of our loneliness.